Thomas Corwin (1794–1865) and Theodore Parker both gave notable speeches against the Mexican War, but Corwin delivered his in the thick of things, on the floor of the Senate, where he represented Ohio as a Whig, and where his flowery, indefatigable polemical style had already won him admirers (John Quincy Adams, for one, once referred to one of Corwin’s vanquished oratorical antagonists as “the late Mr. Crary of Michigan”). But the February 11, 1847, speech was Corwin’s one great moment. Afterwards he shied away from such strident opposition, stressing party unity over principle and disappointing those who had seen in him the great hope of the antislavery campaign and a possible candidate for national office.
MR. PRESIDENT, this uneasy desire to augment our territory, has depraved the moral sense, and blunted the otherwise keen sagacity of our people. What has been the fate of all nations who have acted upon the idea, that they must advance! Our young orators cherish this notion with a fervid, but fatally mistaken zeal. They call it by the mysterious name of “destiny.” “Our destiny,” they say, is onward, and hence they argue, with ready sophistry, the propriety of seizing upon any territory and any people, that may lay in the way of our “fated” advance. Recently these Progressives have grown classical; some assiduous student of antiquities has helped them to a patron saint. They have wandered back into the desolated Pantheon, and there, amongst the Polytheistic relics of that “pale mother of dead empires,” they have found a God whom these Romans, centuries gone by, baptized “Terminus.”
Sir, I have heard much and read somewhat of this gentleman Terminus. Alexander, of whom I have spoken, was a devotee of this divinity. We have seen the end of him and his empire. It was said to be an attribute of this God that he must always advance, and never recede. So both republican and imperial Rome believed. It was, as they said, their destiny. And for a while it did seem to be even so. Roman Terminus did advance. Under the eagles of Rome he was carried from his home on the Tiber, to the furthest East on one hand, and to the far West, amongst the then barbarous tribes of western Europe, on the other. But at length the time came, when retributive justice had become “a destiny.” The despised Gaul calls out to the contemned Goth, and Attilla with his Huns, answers back the battle shout to both. The “blue-eyed nations of the North,” in succession or united, pour forth their countless hosts of warriors upon Rome and Rome’s always-advancing God Terminus. And now the battle-axe of the barbarian strikes down the conquering eagle of Rome. Terminus at last recedes, slowly at first, but finally he is driven to Rome, and from Rome to Byzantium. Whoever would know the further fate of this Roman Deity, so recently taken under the patronage of American Democracy, may find ample gratification of his curiosity, in the luminous pages of Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall.” Such will find, that Rome thought as you now think, that it was her destiny to conquer provinces and nations, and no doubt she sometimes said as you say, “I will conquer a peace.” And where now is she, the Mistress of the World? The spider weaves his web in her palaces, the owl sings his watch-song in her towers. Teutonic power now lords it over the servile remnant, the miserable memento of old and once omnipotent Rome. Sad, very sad, are the lessons which time has written for us. Through and in them all, I see nothing but the inflexible execution of that old law, which ordains as eternal, that cardinal rule, “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods, nor any thing which is his.” Since I have lately heard so much about the dismemberment of Mexico, I have looked back to see how, in the course of events, which some call “Providence,” it has fared with other nations, who engaged in this work of dismemberment. I see that in the latter half of the eighteenth century, three powerful nations, Russia, Austria and Prussia, united in the dismemberment of Poland. They said, too, as you say, “it is our destiny.” They “wanted room.” Doubtless each of these thought, with his share of Poland, his power was too strong ever to fear invasion, or even insult. One had his California, another his New Mexico, and the third his Vera Cruz. Did they remain untouched and incapable of harm? Alas! No—far, very far, from it. Retributive justice must fulfil its destiny too. A very few years pass off, and we hear of a new man, a Corsican lieutenant, the self-named “armed soldier of Democracy,” Napoleon. He ravages Austria, covers her land with blood, drives the Northern Cæsar from his capital, and sleeps in his palace. Austria may now remember how her power trampled upon Poland. Did she not pay dear, very dear, for her California?
But has Prussia no atonement to make? You see this same Napoleon, the blind instrument of Providence, at work there. The thunders of his cannon at Jena proclaim the work of retribution for Poland’s wrongs; and the successors of the Great Frederick, the drill-sergeant of Europe, are seen flying across the sandy plain that surrounds their capitol, right glad if they may escape captivity or death. But how fares it with the Autocrat of Russia? Is he secure in his share of the spoils of Poland? No. Suddenly we see, sir, six hundred thousand armed men marching to Moscow. Does his Vera Cruz protect him now? Far from it. Blood, slaughter, desolation spread abroad over the land, and finally the conflagration of the old commercial metropolis of Russia, closes the retribution, she must pay for her share in the dismemberment of her weak and impotent neighbor. Mr. President, a mind more prone to look for the judgments of Heaven in the doings of men than mine, cannot fail in this to see the Providence of God. When Moscow burned it seemed as if the earth was lighted up, that the Nations might behold the scene. As that mighty sea of fire gathered and heaved and rolled upwards, and yet higher, till its flames licked the stars, and fired the whole Heavens, it did seem as though the God of the Nations was writing in characters of flame on the front of his throne, that doom that shall fall upon the strong nation, which tramples in scorn upon the weak. And what fortune awaits Him, the appointed executor of this work, when it was all done? He, too, conceived the notion that his destiny pointed onward to universal dominion. France was too small—Europe, he thought, should bow down before him. But as soon as this idea took possession of his soul, he too becomes powerless. His Terminus must recede too. Right there, while he witnessed the humiliation, and doubtless meditated the subjugation of Russia, He who holds the winds in his fist, gathered the snows of the north and blew them upon his six hundred thousand men; they fled—they froze—they perished. And now the mighty Napoleon, who had resolved on universal dominion, he too is summoned to answer for the violation of that ancient law, “thou shalt not covet any thing which is thy neighbors.” How is the mighty fallen. He, beneath whose proud footstep Europe trembled, he is now an exile at Elba, and now finally a prisoner on the rock of St. Helena, and there on a barren island, in an unfrequented sea, in the crater of an extinguished volcano, there is the death-bed of the mighty conqueror. All his annexations have come to that! His last hour is now come, and he, the man of destiny, he who had rocked the world as with the throes of an earthquake, is now powerless, still—even as the beggar, so he died. On the wings of a tempest that raged with unwonted fury, up to the throne of the only Power that controlled him while he lived, went the fiery soul of that wonderful warrior, another witness to the existence of that eternal decree, that they who do not rule in righteousness, shall perish from the earth. He has found “room” at last. And France, she too has found “room.” Her “eagles” now no longer scream along the banks of the Danube, the Po, and the Borysthenes. They have returned home; to their old eyre, between the Alps, the Rhine, and the Pyrinees; so shall it be with yours. You may carry them to the loftiest peaks of the Cordilleras, they may wave with insolent triumph in the Halls of the Montezumas, the armed men of Mexico may quail before them, but the weakest hand in Mexico, uplifted in prayer to the God of Justice, may call down against you a Power, in the presence of which, the iron hearts of your warriors shall be turned into ashes.
Mr. President, if the history of our race has established any truth, it is but a confirmation of what is written, “the way of the transgresssor is hard.” Inordinate ambition, wantoning in power, and spurning the humble maxims of justice has—ever has—and ever shall end in ruin. Strength cannot always trample upon weakness—the humble shall be exalted—the bowed down will at length be lifted up. It is by faith in the law of strict justice, and the practice of its precepts, that nations alone can be saved. All the annals of the human race, sacred and profane, are written over with this great truth, in characters of living light. It is my fear, my fixed belief, that in this invasion, this war with Mexico, we have forgotten this vital truth. Why is it, that we have been drawn into this whirlpool of war? How clear and strong was the light that shone upon the path of duty a year ago! The last disturbing question with England was settled—our power extended its peaceful sway from the Atlantic to the Pacific; from the Alleghanies we looked out upon Europe, and from the tops of the Stony Mountains we could descry the shores of Asia; a rich commerce with all the nations of Europe poured wealth and abundance into our lap on the Atlantic side, while an unoccupied commerce of three hundred millions of Asiatics waited on the Pacific for our enterprise to come and possess it. One hundred millions of dollars will be wasted in this fruitless war. Had this money of the people been expended in making a railroad from your Northern Lakes to the Pacific, as one of your citizens has begged of you in vain, you would have made a highway for the world between Asia and Europe. Your capitol then would be within thirty or forty days travel of any and every point on the map of the civilized world. Through this great artery of trade, you would have carried through the heart of your own country, the teas of China, and the spices of India, to the markets of England and France. Why, why, Mr. President, did we abandon the enterprises of peace, and betake ourselves to the barbarous achievements of war? Why did we “forsake this fair and fertile field to batten on that moor.”
But, Mr. President, if further acquisition of territory is to be the result either of conquest or treaty, then I scarcely know which should be preferred, eternal war with Mexico, or the hazards of internal commotion at home, which last I fear may come if another province is to be added to our territory. There is one topic connected with this subject which I tremble when I approach, and yet I cannot forbear to notice it. It meets you in every step you take, it threatens you which way soever you go in the prosecution of this war. I allude to the question of slavery. Opposition to its further extension, it must be obvious to every one, is a deeply-rooted determination with men of all parties in what we call the non-slave-holding States. New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, three of the most powerful, have already sent their legislative instructions here—so it will be, I doubt not, in all the rest. It is vain now to speculate about the reasons for this. Gentlemen of the South may call it prejudice, passion, hypocrisy, fanaticism. I shall not dispute with them now on that point. The great fact that it is so, and not otherwise, is what it concerns us to know. You nor I cannot alter or change this opinion if we would. These people only say, we will not, cannot consent that you shall carry slavery where it does not already exist. They do not seek to disturb you in that institution, as it exists in your States. Enjoy it if you will, and as you will. This is their language, this their determination. How is it in the South? Can it be expected that they should expend in common, their blood and their treasure, in the acquisition of immense territory, and then willingly forego the right to carry thither their slaves, and inhabit the conquered country if they please to do so? Sir, I know the feelings and opinions of the South too well to calculate on this. Nay, I believe they would even contend to any extremity for the mere right, had they no wish to exert it. I believe (and I confess I tremble when the conviction presses upon me) that there is equal obstinacy on both sides of this fearful question. If then, we persist in war, which if it terminate in any thing short of a mere wanton waste of blood as well as money, must end (as this bill proposes) in the acquisition of territory, to which at once this controversy must attach—this bill would seem to be nothing less than a bill to produce internal commotion. Should we prosecute this war another moment, or expend one dollar in the purchase or conquest of a single acre of Mexican land, the North and the South are brought into collision on a point where neither will yield. Who can forsee or foretell the result! Who so bold or reckless as to look such a conflict in the face unmoved! I do not envy the heart of him who can realize the possibility of such a conflict without emotions too painful to be endured. Why then shall we, the representatives of the Sovereign States of this Union—the chosen guardians of this confederated Republic, why should we precipitate this fearful struggle, by continuing a war the results of which must be to force us at once upon it? Sir, rightly considered, this is treason, treason to the Union, treason to the dearest interests, the loftiest aspirations, the most cherished hopes of our constituents. It is a crime to risk the possibility of such a contest. It is a crime of such infernal hue, that every other in the catalogue of iniquity, when compared with it, whitens into virtue. Oh, Mr. President, it does seem to me, if Hell itself could yawn and vomit up the fiends that inhabit its penal abodes, commissioned to disturb the harmony of this world, and dash the fairest prospect of happiness that ever allured the hopes of men, the first step in the consummation of this diabolical purpose would be, to light up the fires of internal war, and plunge the sister States of this Union into the bottomless gulf of civil strife. We stand this day on the crumbling brink of that gulf—we see its bloody eddies wheeling and boiling before us—shall we not pause before it be too late? How plain again is here the path, I may add the only way of duty, of prudence, of true patriotism. Let us abandon all idea of acquiring further territory, and by consequence cease at once to prosecute this war. Let us call home our armies, and bring them at once within our own acknowledged limits. Show Mexico that you are sincere when you say you desire nothing by conquest. She has learned that she cannot encounter you in war, and if she had not, she is too weak to disturb you here. Tender her peace, and my life on it, she will then accept it. But whether she shall or not, you will have peace without her consent. It is your invasion that has made war, your retreat will restore peace. Let us then close forever the approaches of internal feud, and so return to the ancient concord and the old ways of national prosperity and permanent glory. Let us here, in this temple consecrated to the Union, perform a solemn lustration; let us wash Mexican blood from our hands, and on these altars, in the presence of that image of the Father of his Country that looks down upon us, swear to preserve honorable peace with all the world, and eternal brotherhood with each other.